


Let's Do Some Living After We Die

by LaVeraceVia



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Boys Kissing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Dimension Travel, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Men Crying, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sort Of, Stephen King References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVeraceVia/pseuds/LaVeraceVia
Summary: Fuck’s sake, he could be in Hell for all he knows, if Hell looks like a perfectly boring slice of middle America in all of its unremarkable glory.Truth be told, Richie has long suspected that’s EXACTLY what Hell looks like. Fuck.Then he sees the name on the mailbox to his left, and he knows wherever he is, it isn’t Hell.Kaspbrak, it reads.Richie’s pretty sure his heart skips about three beats.Richie’s drowning in grief. He doesn't know how to keeping living in a world where Eddie's dead. But there are other worlds than these...(A crossover of sorts with Stephen King's The Dark Tower series)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 169





	Let's Do Some Living After We Die

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've written anything, but the ending of IT: Chapter 2 has haunted me for months, man. I couldn't get past Eddie's fate, and I couldn't really imagine a world where Richie could either. 
> 
> Last year, around the same time Chapter 2 was released, I finished Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Like IT, The Dark Tower's ending is a tough one. But unlike IT, in The Dark Tower, Stephen King gave one of the main characters a chance to...let's say... _rediscover_ the people that character had lost, in an alternate dimension. It got me thinking: what if Richie was given that same chance? This fic was born from that. 
> 
> Title is from the beautiful, sad song Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones, but this author recommends checking out the covers by The Indigo Girls and The Sundays as well.
> 
> Fic is unbeta'ed.

Richie’s not well. Some days he feels like he can barely breathe.

No. That’s a lie.

 _Most_ days he feels like he can barely breathe.

“You’ve got to let him go, buddy. There’s nothing you could have done. And it’s time.” Bill’s words are pragmatic, his tone as diplomatic as ever, when they talk—which is surprisingly often for two full-grown adult men. But their phone gabfests have become more—not less—frequent over the last six months, and Bill’s gotta be tired of saying the same thing.

Only Richie doesn’t know how to do the thing Bill wants him to do.

“But we fucking _left him._ We left him down there,” he pleads. “I can’t—how the hell do I just let that go?” It’s on the tip of his tongue to say, _I think I loved him, Big Bill_. But he can barely handle thinking it, and he doesn’t think he’d survive the pain of admitting it aloud. And anyway, he doesn’t think—he _knows_ he fucking loved him. Still does.

“I know, buddy. I know. It’s hard.” Where Bill is all practicality, Ben takes a gentler approach. But Ben’d spent twenty-seven years pining for someone he couldn’t remember. Ben gets it. Almost. “You’re going to get through this, man,” he says. “You’ve just gotta give it time.”

“But sometimes I can’t even sleep.” “Sometimes” is an understatement _._ _“_ We _left_ _him_ down there. Eddie wouldn’t want to be like that, alone in the dark. He’d _hate us_ for leaving him. How is _time_ going to help me move past that?” He voice breaks on that last. He thought he’d gotten all of his crying out in the quarry. In the days immediately after Derry. He’d been wrong.

“Oh Richie. Oh honey.” There’s heartbreak in Bev’s voice. Where Bill coaches, and Ben sympathizes, Bev consoles. “He’s not mad at us. He’s not mad at you. He’s at peace now. He’s in a better place. You just have to hold on. Things are going to get better. I promise.”

But Bev’s wrong. It’s not getting better. Richie’s pretty sure it never will.

“Every day I wake up, and things are a little bit worse. Everyone keeps telling me I have to move past it, to just give it more time, but I _can’t_. I don’t know what else to do!” Richie hates the desperation in his voice, the whine. But he can’t help himself. He doesn’t want to eat. He barely sleeps. Booze doesn’t help. Something stronger than booze might, but Richie knows himself well enough to know that’s a rabbit hole he’d never come back from. And he’s just so. Fucking. Tired. If it keeps going on like this, he…he can’t…

It’s Mike, who saves him in the end. “Then stop trying to move past it. Move through it.”

“I don’t know what that fucking means, Mike.”

“It means, find a way to fix it.”

“Gee, thanks pal. That’s helpful. You think I should hire an excavation crew? Or maybe I should just start construction on a time machine?”

“Neither Richie, come on. I’m just saying there are…sources out there. There are _forces_ out there. If you know where to look. And if you can’t make peace with it, then maybe it’s time to start looking.”

Mike had spent twenty-seven years carrying the weight the rest of them put down. Mike had found a way to fight when the rest of them had gone on with their lives. Maybe…maybe Mike was right.

_There are other worlds than these._

Richie doesn’t know where the words come from, but he hears them in his head the moment he hangs up the phone, clear as day. In that moment, he decides. He’s going to take Mike’s advice. He’s going to find a way to move through. Whatever that means.

 _If you know where to look_ , Mike had said. Problem is, Richie doesn’t know where to look.

He starts looking anyway.

It costs him the better part of a year, the vast majority of his money, and a good deal of his sanity. He visits psychics and shamans and holy men and gurus. Ashrams and communes and sweat lodges and labyrinths. He finds a bunch of con men along the way, but very few who are the real deal. Okay, none. He finds some very convincing performers, but none who are _actually_ the real deal.

Then one day, months into his search, the real deal finds Richie. Sits down next to him on the 7 between Manhattan and Queens and sticks out a hand. Introduces himself as Ted Brautigan.

Irritation flares sharply in Richie’s chest—it’d been another one of Those Nights, where thoughts of Eddie plagued him and sleep did its level best to evade him, and he’s got a humdinger of a headache AND an appointment with a fortuneteller who purportedly told some guy six out of the winning seven numbers to the Powerball last month, a full three days before they were picked, and the last thing he has the time or patience for is _this_ , whatever this is about to be. But Richie tamps down on the frustration. Guy probably just recognizes Richie from the HBO standup special from two years ago and wants to ask for an autograph. It’s always easier to placate people like this than it is to pick a fight.

“But I don’t want your autograph, Mr. Tozier. I want to thank you for what you did in a small town in Maine last year. And I want to pass along a message.”

“…the fuck?” Richie’s halfway to his feet, his cry echoing throughout the subway car that he only belatedly realizes is empty but for the two of them. Oh. Shit.

“It’s alright, young man. You can sit back down. I come in peace.” The man—what had he called himself? Brautigan?—holds up his hands to illustrate the point, and Richie takes the time to really look at him. The guy is older, somewhere in his seventies maybe, if Richie had to guess, and is wearing a shabby suit and a smile that’s two parts kindly and one part faintly amused. He really does look harmless, but Richie’s seen enough to know how convincing illusions can be.

Still…curiosity killed that stupid fucking cat for a reason. “What’s…the message?” Richie asks suspiciously, poised and ready to make for the nearest emergency exit (and right out into the path of the next oncoming train, most likely) if the guy shows even the slightest hint of fang or claw or, god forbid, white pancake makeup.

Brautigan’s gaze is steady, his voice even, when he looks at Richie and says, “There are other worlds than these.”

“W-what?” Richie feels his eyebrows climb practically straight up into his hairline (which is _not_ fucking receding, _thankyouverymuch_ , no matter what his bad idea of an ex-girlfriend had had to say about the matter). He reclaims his seat beside Brautigan eagerly, no longer concerned with anything except the information the old man can provide. He searches for the right words to ask, but only manages to come up with, “Fucking…what?”

“You heard me. I don’t know exactly what it is that will help you, my boy, but the thing you’re searching for…I believe you’re going to need to go to Europe to find it. It’s there, somewhere in the northern part. Scandinavia, maybe, but don’t take my word for it. I’m a little fuzzy on that last bit. I wish I could give you more, but some things require seeking. This is one of them.”

Richie gapes. “Who the hell are you, dude?”

Brautigan smiles, something tired in the expression. “Just an old man seeking redemption. With miles to go before I can sleep. Now,” he pauses to don his hat, a fedora just as battered as the suit he wears, “This is where I get off.” Richie hadn’t even noticed the train was slowing. “Just remember: the north of Europe. It won’t be easy, but it won’t be impossible either, if you don’t give up. Fortune favors the bold, sure, but it favors the tenacious even more. Good luck, Richie Tozier. Godspeed.”

With that, the doors to the subway car open with a pneumatic hiss, and the man who’d called himself Brautigan slips out. Richie sits there for a moment, dumb-founded. By the time it occurs to him to go after the guy, people are streaming steadily into the car, and it takes Richie too long to shoulder his way out. Once he makes it out onto the platform, Ted Brautigan is gone.

Richie books a flight to Copenhagen the next day.

It’s a long fucking winter.

He tries Denmark first, because Brautigan had said, _Scandinavia, maybe_ , but when nothing turns up there, he moves on to Germany, because “Scandinavia, maybe” isn’t exactly same thing as “Scandinavia, definitely,” and at this point, Richie isn’t willing to leave a stone in the northern half of the European continent unturned. He tries Poland after nothing turns up in Germany, but Poland’s a dead end too. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, only that he’s supposed to know when he finds…whatever it is, and that it’ll somehow (hopefully, _please God, please Allah, please jolly old Saint fucking Nick_ ) fix the aching restlessness that’s taken up residence deep in his bones since he left Derry and Eddie (or what was left of him) for the second time in his life.

Richie heads to the Netherlands after he leaves Poland, but he doesn’t find shit there either, except for a bunch of drugs, which he avails himself to eagerly, because why the fuck not? He’s tired and they’re legal and he _can_ , and he needs to feel something that’s not guilt and grief for a while. Or maybe he just needs to feel nothing at all.

But eventually Richie gets sick of hangovers and comedowns—or his body does, same difference, and he looks in the mirror one morning and thinks, _when did I get so fucking old?_ And that's all the motivation he needs to get the hell out of Dodge (or Amsterdam, as it were). Because the guy in the mirror doesn't just look old, he looks haggard and exhausted and on the verge of giving up. And fuck that guy, because Richie’s never giving up.

Only…has he mentioned that his money’s started to run thin?

He’s in Stockholm, Sweden, when it happens. He should have come here sooner, he knows. But he’d been too scared. _Scandinavia, maybe_ , the guy on the train—Brautigan—had said, and you can’t get more Scandinavian than Sweden, at least in Richie’s mind, but he’d thought he had to leave no stone unturned, had to check everywhere else first and leave this place for last, because if the way through his grief isn’t here, then he’s well and truly fucked.

Now he has just enough cash to cover a couple of days in the country and maybe enough to cover the flight back home, if he flies coach.

Christ, he’s going to have to call Bill for help, isn’t he?

But he isn’t, it turns out, because he finds the store first.

It’s the sign on the window that draws Richie’s attention—a picture of an enormous turtle, holding a planet on the back of his shell. Only, no, that’s not exactly right, is it? The back of his shell _is_ a planet. A world.

The name of the store— _Andra Världar_ —floats above the storefront in blocky runic script. Richie’s Über driver hadn’t found Richie’s Swedish chef impersonation at all funny, but he still helpfully translates the words into English: Other Worlds. The name of the fucking store is Other Worlds. Richie cuts the ride short, rates the driver five stars and gives him a tip he can’t really afford. Doesn’t matter. It’s here. Not _It_ , not the bad one, but the thing he’s been looking for. It’s here. He’s _knows_.

Inside, the place is huge and dusty and can’t decide if it wants to be an antiques store or a used book store. Doesn’t matter. Richie doesn’t know where he’s going, but his feet apparently do. He heads straight for the back of the store like he’s following a map; it’s like there’s a fish hook caught behind his navel, tugging him along, not so much guiding as _towing_ him in the right direction.

It takes him a few minutes of sifting through the contents of an old steamer trunk tucked away in a corner before he actually has the thing in his hands. It’s a valise, an old carpet bag embroidered with big red cabbage roses. The old leather handles are cracked and peeling, but the roses themselves are just as vibrantly scarlet as the day the fabric was woven.

Richie knows instinctively that the thing he’s looking for isn’t actually the bag itself, but whatever’s _in_ the bag. But he also knows with a bone-deep certainty that he can’t take it out in here. If he does, he’ll never leave with the item in his possession. It’s too special, too precious to be seen by anyone’s eyes but his, and Richie will fight for it if he has to, but when it comes down to it, he’s always been better with words than fists.

The old shopkeeper hesitates when Richie brings it to the cash register, her mouth turning down in frown of displeasure, like she knows she’s giving up something of great value, instead of a musty, crumpled old valise with a broken clasp and cracked handles.

Richie doesn’t think she’s going to sell it to there for a minute, thinks he’s going to have to snatch it and take off running, end up being pursued by whatever they call the police here, Interpol or some shit, get caught and spend the rest of his natural born life as prison bitch to a big Swede with a name like Hans or Fritz. But just as he’s tensing to make a break for it, she names her price. Ninety-one euros. It’s a strange price, but Richie doesn’t question it, just peels a hundred out of the thinning wad of cash in his wallet and tells her to keep the change, then books it the fuck out of there before she can change her mind.

He double-times it back to the hotel, the valise clutched desperately to his chest, heart pounding like he’s run a marathon. He doesn’t open it until he’s back in his room, tucked safely behind a triple-locked door.

It’s empty.

Fuck. Maybe he really is going crazy.

But, no. It’s here. It’s here. It has to be.

 _There are other worlds than these_ , he thinks desperately. Or doesn’t so much think as hear, really, rattling around inside his own skull, like someone’s making an announcement over an intercom that’s wired straight into Richie’s broken brain.

He reaches back inside the bag, hand moving unerringly towards the side rather than the bottom, this time. _There_. He feels it behind the lining, something stitched into it, between the inner and outer layers of the fabric, hidden therein. It’s hard, a lump with irregular edges, round-ish on one side and flat-ish on the other, about half the size of an office stapler.

He cuts it out with the serrated steak knife he’d used to eat his dinner from room service the night before.

It’s a turtle. A small, carved figurine, roughly hewn but beautiful, somehow. Richie holds it up to the light for a better view. It’s some type of dark stone: marble, or granite maybe, shot through with shimmering cream-colored veins. Something about the way the turtle stands indicates motion, as if it had been caught mid-step, its tiny head tipped slightly upwards in a way that makes it seem proud. Noble, somehow.

The _Sköldpadda_ , he thinks, a little awed. Or maybe he hears it, because just like that, he knows that’s what this thing is called. The _Sköldpadda_ , spelled with a “sk” but pronounced “SHOOL-pah-dah,” emphasis on the first syllable, the “L” sound rolled on the middle of the tongue, a word that’s somehow sibilant and fricative all at once, as if were a word created to be shouted in battle by some long-haired Viking brandishing a battle axe. Or whispered in an arcane pagan shrine.

Richie has his solution now. His way through, as Mike had called it. He just doesn’t know what it does. Or how the hell to make it work.

He tries talking to the thing, tries rubbing it like a magic lamp, tries speaking magic words like _Abracadabra_ and _Open Sesame_ and _Come on, DO SOMETHING, you stupid fucking turtle!_ All of which work about as well as can be expected, which is not at all, basically. Eventually he resorts to shaking it like a pen that’s run out of ink, and when that doesn’t work, he throws it at the wall in a fit of desperation, hoping that if he breaks it open, whatever power it holds will finally be freed. The only thing he succeeds in damaging is the drywall; the turtle—the _Sköldpadda_ —is without a scratch.

Finally he gives it a rest and goes for a fucking walk. He’s frustrated beyond words, knowing he’s holding the answer to his problems in his hands, but lacking any knowledge of what to do next, and the walls of the hotel room are starting to close in on him, and if he doesn’t get some fresh air, he’s gonna end up trashing the place like it’s 1989 and he’s Tommy Lee on a cocaine bender.

He’s lost in thought, caught somewhere between memory and plans for the future, thoughts consumed, as they always are these days, by Eddie and nothing but Eddie, when it happens. Richie doesn’t know how a tiny little turtle figurine can carve out tons and tons of dirt and stone in the caved-in place where the house on Neiboldt Street used to be. He doesn’t know how it’s going to help find a body that’s been buried underneath all that debris for so many months (more than a year, actually) now. He doesn’t know how it’s going to help him lay that body to rest, or how it’s going to give him, Richie, any peace even once it does. He just knows that it IS. It has to.

Because he already feels better now, just clutching it in his fist. He feels warmed, cheered, filled with hope for the first time since Derry. Since long before that, really. He feels…he feels almost like Eddie is still alive somehow, or that he could be alive again, even if he’s not right now, and even though Richie knows, rationally, that that’s not possible, what he knows and what he feels right now are two completely different things.

He’s distracted. Preoccupied. It’s why he doesn’t see it until it’s too late—the way the ground slopes, then tilts sideways, dumping him towards the water of the canal that, he’ll swear afterwards, actually _rises up_ to meet him, lifting itself from its watery path to defy gravity as it swallows him whole.

He does _not_ —no matter what it might look like—jump. There is no decision to enter the water, not even an inkling of a thought that he might take his own life this way—or any other way. And even as he falls (and falls and falls and falls, when the water should not be this deep), Richie wishes there was a way to tell the others—Bill and Ben and Bev and Mike—that he didn’t choose this. It was chosen for him, when the earth decided to dump him right the fuck off its surface, and the water decided to take him away.

It doesn’t matter though. He falls, tumbling down, down, down (or is it up?) through the water, until he’s so far away from the surface that he knows he’ll never make it back out alive. His friends will believe that Richie chose death, just the same as Stan, rather than live in a world with the knowledge of what IT had taken from them.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thinks, when he can’t swim anymore and his lungs are full to bursting. _I’m so sorry_ , right before he inhales, and the water comes flooding in, and then he thinks nothing more.

***

There’s no big moment. Richie doesn’t drop out of a portal in the sky or come to with a gasp or any dramatic shit like that. One minute there’s nothing, and the next minute he simply… _is_ , again.

He focuses on just breathing for a minute, because the sensation feels somehow foreign. Awareness of his surroundings begins to trickle in.

He’s on a neighborhood street, both sides of which are lined by sturdy, nondescript houses that tell him he’s been dropped smack dab into a little slice of middle-class suburbia somewhere, but apart from that he’s shit outta luck when it comes to knowing where or even _when_ he is.

“Well shit, Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Sweden anymore.” Not only is he not in Sweden anymore, he’s pretty damn sure he’s not…he’s not even in his own world anymore.

He doesn’t know how he knows that, exactly. There are no monsters or aliens or nefarious talking primates named Dr. Zaius. There’s no sense of wrongness, no hint of anything strange or off-kilter to indicate he’s…somewhere else.

He just knows that he is.

_There are other worlds than these._

Well okay, fine. Other worlds. Another world is what he’s in. Fucking fine. But what kind of other world is he in, and why has that stupid fucking turtle brought him here, and how the hell is this supposed to help him??

Panicking isn’t helping, _Richie, come on._ He can figure this out. He has to, so he’s going to focus on doing that instead of panicking. Okay.

There’s a hint of chill in the air and dead leaves on the sidewalks, so he decides it must be autumn here, if this place has autumn. So. The suburbs in autumn. That’s all he’s got. The street lights are on and there’s a hint of pinky-purple light peeking over the horizon, but without a reference point for east and west, that could mean dawn or dusk. Fuck’s sake, he could be in Hell for all he knows, if Hell looks like a perfectly boring slice of middle America in all of its unremarkable glory.

Truth be told, Richie has long suspected that’s EXACTLY what Hell looks like. Fuck.

Then he sees the name on the mailbox to his left, and he knows wherever he is, it isn’t Hell.

 _Kaspbrak_ , it reads.

Richie’s pretty sure his heart skips about three beats.

He doesn’t stop to consider which Kaspbrak the mailbox might be referring to. He bounds the steps up to the front door of the little yellow craftsman-style bungalow, taking them three at a time. He doesn’t let himself stop to consider, when he begins knocking imperatively (desperately) on the door—like the world’s most mentally-unhinged Avon lady—that the Kaspbrak behind the door might not be the one he’s longing for.That it might be the wife—what was her name? Moira? Myra?—or God forbid, Eddie’s awful mother, back from the dead, in this new world.

Shudder.

No. No, it won’t be one of them. Fate wouldn’t do that to him—send him all over the globe on a wild goose chase, then yank him out of his own world, possibly (probably) killing him in the process, just to drop him into another world where…where _he’s_ still gone. NO. Eddie’s going to answer this door. Richie knows it. He’s sure of it. He has to be.

Only…no one answers the door.

Despair threatens to open a gaping black chasm somewhere inside of Richie.

NO. Fuck that. Fuck. THAT.

Richie goes from knocking in a way he could at least argue is marginally polite to banging on the door with the side of his fist as hard as he can. From somewhere inside, a dog starts barking. But it’s only a dog; still no sign of human activity.

And that’s when Richie loses his mind a little. Starts wailing hard on the door with the flats of both palms, drumming wildly enough to make Keith Moon proud. “Hey, asshole! Open the fuck up, I know you’re in there!! I KNOW you’re in there! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE EDDIE, OPEN THE GODDAMN DO—”

The wood recedes from beneath his palms, and Richie hears the voice before he sees the face—“Geez man, what the hell is your problem?”—and then the door is all the way open and Richie finds himself in the middle of the most ardently joyful, unbelievable, fucking _beautiful_ moment of his natural born life. Because on the other side of that door, standing there with wet hair and bare feet, obviously freshly showered and even more freshly dressed, is Eddie fucking Kaspbrak.

Alive.

“Oh,” they both say at the same time, only Eddie’s _oh_ is a barely-voiced breath and Richie’s sounds like someone punched the sound out of him, more _AUHF_ than oh.

“Oh,” Richie says again. “Oh, shit. _Eds_.” And then for the first time in Richie Tozier’s whole life, words fail him. Any minute now, his heart is actually going to beat its way out of his chest.

But, oh no. The look on Eddie’s face isn’t one of joy. It’s another expression entirely, one of pale-faced, round-eyed, thin-lipped horror, one that Richie associates with sewers and derelict houses and fucking clowns.

“No. _No_. You’re dead! You…you can’t be real!” he stammers, taking a step backwards.

“Oh, fuck you!” Richie protests, following. “I am too real!”

Okay, this is definitely not going how Richie had imagined. Not that he’s let himself even imagine the possibility of finding Eddie alive somehow, somewhere…but if he had, THIS WOULD NOT BE IT.

“No, you can’t be.” The words are pained, Eddie’s voice breaking as he takes another step backwards into the house. Farther away from Richie.

He just found him, and he’s already losing him again. No. “Wait, Eddie, _please_ ,” Richie reaches out, pleading, desperate now, his voice cracking on the last syllable.

Something in the words stops Eddie in his tracks. His eyes dart over Richie’s face, terror warring with…something else. “Please tell me you’re not…that Thing. Oh please, oh God, please don’t be It.”

 _It_. That fucking clown, he means. Just thinking of the thing makes Richie shudder. Now it’s his turn to shake his head. “I’m not It. I’m me. Really me. I swear, Eddie. See?” He holds his hands out, palms open, so the scars there are visible.

Eddie still looks dubious, but his backward progress into the house has stopped. He stares Richie down with wary eyes, mouth set in a defiant line. “So what are you, like…a ghost?”

Richie frowns. “No. At least, I don’t think so.” Exaggeratedly, he pats his own chest, his arms, the top of his head. Takes off his glasses and squints at them suspiciously before putting them on again. “I mean, I feel pretty alive to me.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at his antics, a glimpse of the Eddie that Richie knows, before he shakes his head emphatically, his mouth going thin again, the corners turning down. “But I watched you die. It…It caught you in Its deadlights, and I froze, and you _died_ , Richie. So how can you be here now?”

That’s when Richie starts to get it. Where he’s at. Why the turtle, the _Sköldpadda_ , brought him here.

“Not in my world,” he tells Eddie. “Where I come from, you were the one that died. It had me in the deadlights, yeah, and it was going to kill me, and then you stopped it. You saved me. With a fucking monster-killing fence post. You threw it like…like it was a goddamned spear, and you saved me. And…and then It killed you instead.” He swallows, trying not to see it all over again. Trying not to be back there when Eddie—living, _breathing_ Eddie—is standing right here in front of him. Fucking alive.

Eddie frowns. “In your world?” He steps back out onto the porch with Richie. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I’m from an alternate reality, or dimension, or something, I think,” Richie tells him. “I don’t know. I’m kind of fuzzy on the details. But I fell into the water where I’m from…” Sort of. “…and I must have crossed over, or through, or…” It’s too hard to explain, it barely makes sense in his own head, there’s no way he can find the words to make it make sense to someone else. So he simply shows Eddie the _Sköldpadda_ , still clutched in his fist as it had been when he fell, and says, “There are other worlds than these.”

An ineffable sort of understanding dawns on Eddie’s face. Richie knows the feeling. Eddie takes another step closer, eating up the space he’d put between them earlier. “I…I used to dream about a turtle sometimes. It was huge, and old, really, really old, and it never said anything, but I _knew_ that it saw me, and just knowing that it knew about me made me feel better. Safer.”

Richie nods emphatically. “Holy shit, yeah! Me too! Like that thing from The Never-ending Story, right? But bigger. Like, Universe-big!”He’d all but forgotten until now, but he’s had those dreams too. So long ago now that it felt like they happened to someone else.

Eddie’s reaching out a tentative hand, wrapping it around Richie’s forearm, as if to check the solidness of Richie’s form, and that warm touch, that verifiable sensation that Eddie is alive, and touching him, is what does it.“So, you’re…real? You’re really here?”

Richie breaks.

“Oh shit, Eds,” he gasps, doubling over like he’s taken a hit to the sternum. “Eddie Spaghetti. Jesus Christ, I’ve fucking missed you so much.” And his face is wet before he even realizes he’s crying, and when he looks back on this moment, he’ll never quite be able to remember which one of them moves first, but he thinks it’s Eddie, but it doesn’t matter because someone moves, or maybe they both do, and then they’re in each other’s arms, hugging. Only, hugging is an understatement for the embrace happening between them. Neither one of them is hugging each other, so much as…holding on like they’re the only thing anchoring one another to the Earth.

His arms are wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders and Eddie’s are wound tightly around his waist, and his face is pressed into Eddie’s temple as he breathes deeply, inhaling the nearly-forgotten eucalyptus/menthol/Dove soap scent of him, and shit, how had he almost forgotten how good and clean Eddie always smelled? Eddie presses his face against Richie’s shoulder, continuously murmuring “Shit shit shit!” punctuating it with the occasional “Fuck!” for good measure.

There’s no way of knowing how much time passes, but eventually Eddie’s litany of profanity trails off and he sighs heavily, the feel of it reverberating through Richie’s own body, and they both pull back—not letting go, just getting enough space between them that they can meet each other’s eyes again. Richie wants to pull him back in again and never let him go.

“I can’t believe this,” Eddie marvels, searching Richie’s face.

“Well you better fucking believe it,” Richie sniffles. “I don’t cry like a little bitch for just anyone.”

Eddie smiles, and it’s…it’s worth everything that Richie’s been through to see it. “Heh, yeah. You uh, want to come inside, meet my dog?” Eddie asks, and that’s probably a good idea because Richie still doesn’t know what part of America this little suburban stronghold is located in, but they might be in the South, or the Midwest, and this whole exchange is probably looking pretty gay as it is, and it might get even gayer, if Richie has anything to say about it.

He takes his glasses off and pulls up the collar of his Ramones t-shirt to wipe at his wet eyes. “Yeah, that sounds great,” he chokes out.

They’re standing in Eddie’s cozy little foyer, door closed behind them, when it occurs to Richie. “Um, there’s just one thing…” he hedges.

Eddie whips back around to face him. “What? What is it?”

Richie squints at him. “It’s just…are you sure your wife’s okay with you referring to her as ‘my dog’?”

Eddie blinks once, twice, owlishly, and Richie can’t stop himself from laughing. Eddie surges forward. “You’re such an asshole, Tozier!”

Knowing what’s coming, Richie retreats, makes a grab to catch Eddie’s fists, but he’s laughing too hard to stop the swift one-two of a rabbit punch that Eddie aims at his stomach. It hurts—forty year old Eddie’s punches are a lot harder than thirteen year old Eddie’s had been—but damn, it feels good too. Laughing like this. Screwing with Eddie. Having this with him again, when Richie had thought it was gone forever. “No, I’m serious! Show some respect, Kaspbrak!” he giggles, finally succeeding in catching Eddie’s flying fists, wrapping his fingers around the shorter man’s wrists and pulling him into another bear hug, so he has no leverage to punch.

When they were kids, Richie would have taken it a step further, held Eddie’s face against his chest, muffling his screams of indignation as he gave him a noogie or a wet willy. But he doesn’t do that now. Because there had been truth in Richie’s joking words; Eddie has a wife. Who’s probably here. In Eddie’s house. And his life. And his bed.

Richie’s stomach gives a sick twist.

Sobering, he releases Eddie, who smooths his shirt and hair with a huff. “Asshole,” he repeats.

“Yep,” Richie acknowledges. He shoves his hands in his pockets, summoning up the stones to ask the question he’s not sure he wants an answer to. “Look, seriously though, is your wife going to care that I’m here? Does she even know about me? About the Losers’ Club, and what happened in Derry? Should I…” He starts to say _s_ _hould I go_ , but he’ll be damned if he’s going anywhere. He just found Eddie, he’s not losing him again, no matter what his awful wife thinks about it. He’ll set up camp on the front lawn if he has to.

But Eddie’s pressing his lips together, shaking his head. “She’s not here.”

“Oh.” _Good_ , Richie has to restrain himself from adding. “When’s she coming back?”

Another shake of the head, directed down at his shoes this time. “She’s not,” Eddie says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I uh, I left her last year. Told her I wanted a divorce. We signed the papers last week. She got the brownstone in the city. And the car. And my 401k. And I went out and got this place. And a dog. An actual dog.” He finally looks up to meet Richie’s eyes, worry furrowing the spot between his dark brows. “I’ve been figuring…I mean, I’ve been _trying_ to figure things out since then.” He shrugs one shoulder. “You know.”

There’s a lot of things Richie wants to say to that, but he’s pretty sure “Great, fuck her, now you can marry me because I love you and I have ever since we were kids” wouldn’t go over so well, so instead he says, “I can’t believe you got a dog. Doesn’t it poop and pee and shed all over the place and bother your asthma and shit?”

“Not if you train them well. That’s the problem with people: they think puppies are just magically supposed to know how to behave, and then they decide they’re bad dogs when they don’t. But Angel’s well-trained. And she’s an F1b labradoodle, so she’s practically hypoallergenic.” Eddie’s smile is small, but happiness crinkles the corners of his eyes. “You wanna meet her?”

“Hell yeah.” Richie’s gotta see this.

Angel the labradoodle turns out to be…an actual angel. Richie follows Eddie into the living room—a surprisingly cozy, warm-looking place, not at all like the sterile, slip-covered space Richie remembers from Eddie’s childhood home—where something big and fluffy and white is curled up in a large dog bed inside a larger kennel.

Eddie makes a kissing noise and drops to his knees. “Angel! Here, girl!” And the big, fluffy white something uncurls herself and comes bounding out of the open door of the kennel towards the two of them.

Eddie lifts his hand level with his shoulder, fingers curled into his palm, like he’s a goddamn sergeant signaling to the battalion marching behind him. “Sit.” And the dog stops, practically mid-bound, and sinks down on her haunches. “Good girl,” Eddie says, then flattens out his hand and lowers it, palm down. “Down.” The dog complies, lying down with her head resting on her front paws. Eddie crouches down in front of her, motioning for Richie to do the same.

“That’s such a _good girl_ ,” he croons, petting the dog’s head, scritching behind her ears. “Who’s Daddy’s good girl? That’s right, it’s Angel, Angel is Daddy’s good girl, yes she is! You can pet her if you want. She won’t bite.”

That last is directed at Richie, who complies, stroking his fingers through her soft, curly coat. “Hey there, sweet girl.” The dog licks his hand in acknowledgement before turning rapt brown eyes back to her master. “She’s beautiful, Eddie,” Richie says. “Why Angel?”

Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know. Just seemed right. She was just so sweet, from the first moment I got her, right after Myra and I split up. I knew dogs were supposed to be loyal, but I didn’t _know_ , you know?” His mouth flattens out into a straight line. “My mom would never let me have a dog.”

“I remember,” Richie says, still petting his hands through Angel’s fluffy coat, enjoying the way his fingers sometimes brush up against Eddie’s, mid-stroke. And he does remember. He remembers Eddie begging his mom to have a dog, remembers Mrs. Kaspbrak’s palpable distaste every time Eddie brought it up. Remembers the way she refused to let him get close to any of the neighborhood dogs, much less pet one. Remembers all her talk of mange and fleas and worms and “parasites Eddie, those things carry parasites! Do you _want_ one of those? Is that what you want, to spend weeks in the hospital, scaring Mommy, eating through a tube in your tummy because one of those beasts gave you a stomach parasite??”

“…and Myra was allergic to them,” Eddie is continuing, oblivious to Richie’s side trip into ugly childhood nostalgia. “But I always wanted one, and after Myra and I split up, after Derry, there didn’t seem to be a good reason not to get one. So that’s how I ended up with my baby here, isn’t that right Angel-girl?” That last is said whilst giving the dog a vigorous chin scratching, in that cooing baby-talk voice that every single dog owner seems to affect, the one that’s always made Richie want to die a little, possibly by his own hand.

Except when Eddie does it, it’s stupidly fucking endearing and sweet. Turns out Angel isn’t the only one who wants to roll over and beg.

“I know it’s stupid to love an animal so much, but I’m not sure what I would have done during the last year, if I didn’t have her,” Eddie confesses, still petting Angel’s head. He nuzzles his face into her fur. “After what happened down in the tunnels, after you…I mean, after he…shit.” He shakes his head. “After Derry and everything that happened, I knew I couldn’t stay with Myra. I cared about her, but…who the fuck marries their own fucking mother? I just…I guess I thought I had to marry her before, like…that’s where my life was always supposed to end up. But then I came back, and I knew…I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to. But being alone kind of sucks ass, especially when you can’t talk to anyone about what you’ve been through.”

Richie frowns. “What about the old gang? Didn’t you guys keep in touch?”

“I mean, yeah, we keep in touch, but even they don’t really get it. Bill has Audra and his writing, and Bev and Ben have each other, and Mike has his—” Eddie fumbles for his words, then seems to resort to gesturing expansively, “—his quest to find a life out there, or whatever. And I’ve got a half-furnished house in Iowa, and a overgrown puppy and, and this…this fucking _guilt_ that I can’t shake because we left you—” his eyes are shiny when they shoot up to meet Richie’s and he shakes his head vigorously, almost violently, overcome with frustration. “I mean, we left him—we left Richie down there to rot, and I CANNOT FUCKING BEAR IT, fuck me,” his voice cracks and he covers the top half of his face with one hand, doing nothing to hide the way his mouth pulls down in a rictus of grief, and he goes to pull away, to get up, but Richie grabs his arm, pulls him back in close.

“Hey. _Hey_ , it’s okay, you don’t have to be embarrassed. I get it. Believe me, I fucking get it,” Richie tells him.

Eddie scrubs at his wet eyes with his sleeve. “Do you?”

“I really fucking do. I never really had anyone to talk to about it either. The others tried to help, but it wasn’t the same. They all lost someone down there too, but…not like I did.” He can’t believe he’s about to say this, but… “D’you wanna, like, fucking talk about it or something?”

Eddie huffs, half sob, half scoff. “Isn’t that what we’re already doing?”

“Yeah but, I mean _really_ talk about it, like men—scratching our balls, denying our feelings, making as little eye contact as possible and swilling shitty beer while we do it.”

Eddie sighs. “I don’t have any shitty beer. I don’t actually have _any_ beer. But I’ve got…hot cocoa?” His eyes on Richie’s are so fucking earnest. It cuts Richie to the core; he’s not sure if he wants to hug him, or give him head.

He decides to take him up on his offer instead.

“Eddie, my dear, sweet, innocent dumpling, as long as I can have it somewhere other than here, squatting on these hardwood floors with my shitty old man knees, you can feed me whatever the fuck you want.”

He finishes with a dirty old man eyebrow waggle for good measure, and is gratified when Eddie huffs out a reluctant laugh. Eddie stands and holds out a long-fingered hand for Richie, who takes it in his own, wincing at the way his knees crack when Eddie pulls him to his feet. He’s pleasantly surprised when, instead of letting go, Eddie uses their clasped hands to pull Richie into another embrace. “Damn, I missed you, Trashmouth,” Eddie says to Richie’s breastbone, where his face is smushed into Richie’s chest.

“I fucking missed you too, Spaghetti.” Richie returns, marveling once again at the reality of Eddie in his arms. Marveling a little more at how _good_ Eddie’s lean body feels against his. It feels simultaneously impossible and inevitable, that they’ve found themselves here, together again.

It’s dark outside, so they end up on the couch together in front of a roaring fireplace (turns out it had been sunset that Richie had witnessed when he’d first arrived). Their talk is mostly of the small variety, but it comes easy, aided by ginormous mugs of cocoa topped with these big, square marshmallows. The fancy kind. Probably some gourmet organic shit from Trader Joe’s. They’re delicious, and Richie’s warm and cozy and happy and he feels fucking _safe_ , and it takes everything in him to resist the urge to comment on how Eddie turned out to be a much better mother than Mrs. Kaspbrak had ever been. He can’t, however, restrain himself from asking, in a nasally, pretentious voice, “Are you sure these marshmallows are gluten free?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “No, I have no fucking idea. And I don’t care. I might be a bundle of neuroses, but I don’t have Celiac’s disease, so turns out I can eat all the gluten I want.” He smiles at Richie, an anemic, sad little imitation of the actual expression. “My therapist and I are working on examining all my individual hang-ups and eliminating the ones we can prove are empirically false. So far, turns out I DON’T have Celiac’s or asthma or hay fever or nut allergies or fibromyalgia or scoliosis or pernicious anemia. I DO have generalized anxiety and a shit ton of PTSD, so,” he shrugs. “You win some, you lose some, I guess.”

Richie gapes at him over his mug. “Wow, Eds, I’m impressed. You died in my universe and all I did was crash my career and blow all my money on ashrams and vision quests. And you know, occasionally some drugs. Whereas you’ve been doing actual work for self-improvement. I guess we know who wins the *I Put My Grief To Good Use* contest.”

The easy smile Eddie had been wearing slides off his face. He puts his mug down and turns his body to face Richie full-on. With lips pressed together, he clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head, a movement that manages to be restrained and manic at the same time, more a vibration than an actual side-to-side shake, really. He makes a blade of his right hand, lifts it into the air beside his face in what Richie recognizes as his _Explaining Simple Things to Richie the Moron_ gesture. His mouth works, but no words are forthcoming, Eddie just keeps shaking his head in frustration.

“Spit it out, sweethear—” Richie says.

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me???” Eddie exclaims, before Richie can finish. “You spent the better part of a year looking for a way to…what? Find me?”

“Looking for a way to put you to rest,” Richie murmurs, but Eddie ignores him in favor of continuing his rant.

“I died on your side and you crossed multiple fucking universes to—to find me!”

“Strictly speaking it was probably just one universe—”

“Shut up, Richie! You died over here, and I…I fucking got a divorce and a dog! Christ, could I be any more of a fucking sad sack? I’m such a—” He flinches, pinching the bridge of his nose like it hurts him to look at Richie. He’s talking fast now, babbling so quickly the words trip over each other, “God, I can’t even—I can’t even imagine how disappointed you must be. You went looking for your friend; you came to find the guy who was brave and good and shit, and you fucking got me inste—”

“Okay, now _you_ shut the fuck up, dumbass.”

Eddie stops, less by virtue of Richie’s words than by the hand Richie has fisted into the front of his shirt, pulling so hard that Eddie was nearly dragged into Richie’s lap. Eddie doesn’t say anything, but his chin trembles almost imperceptibly. Wide brown eyes search Richie’s face.

“You moved on. You didn’t let grief or PTSD or what-the-fuck-ever break you. You built a new life. A good one.”

Eddie shakes his head miserably, so Richie tightens his grip in Eddie’s shirt, pulls him in even closer, as gently as he can (which isn’t very), until they’re practically nose-to-nose. “No, don’t shake your head at me, I’m serious. You’re building something here. You have a house, and a dog, and a therapist, and a life that wasn’t planned for you by your mother. I have an empty bank account and a bunch of burned bridges and a few remaining friends who’re gonna think I offed myself when I don’t turn up like the bad penny I fucking am, and they won’t be that far from the truth, because I was never gonna let it go. I couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t forgive myself for leaving your body in those tunnels, for letting you die without telling you that I’ve been carrying a BIG OLD homo torch around for you since we were like, twelve years old and, and I—” the bare skin beneath Eddie’s stretched collar catches his eye “—Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, is that a _tattoo_?”

He untangles his fist from Eddie’s collar, depositing him back on the cushion beside him, but only so he can kneel up over him and use both hands to stretch the neck of Eddie’s shirt out even more, pulling it down to bare the skin of his chest. He doesn’t ignore the way Eddie’s hands wrap around his wrists, exactly, but he doesn’t stop either.

Because there, underneath the cotton that’s starting to give way beneath the pressure of his grasp, Richie finds a familiar image.

It’s a fucking tattoo alright, black ink forming a picture about the size of Richie’s hand, if he were to splay his fingers wide. He itches to do just that: stretch his hand out wide, press it flat to the skin of Eddie’s chest, right over the ink.

Instead he just breathes, “Are those my glasses?”

He doesn’t need Eddie’s hitched breath or his nervous, shaky nod to know that he’s right—that inked right there, right over the skin of Eddie’s left pectoral, over his _heart_ , is a perfect illustration of Richie’s fucking glasses. Not the ones he’s wearing now though. No, this pair, picked out in black ink against the paleness of Eddie’s skin, is a perfect reproduction of the Coke bottle monstrosities that Richie had worn when they were children. 

Eddie’s still nodding, more emphatic now. His voice shakes. “Y-yeah. I got it right...right after Derry. I was scared I was going to forget you again, l-like before, and I couldn’t think of another way to keep you with me. It, it took me three sittings to finish it. I puked the first time, a couple of minutes in. And then the…the second time, I couldn’t fucking stop sobbing. Cried like a baby. But my tattoo artist, she was so cool. She told me I could come back as many times as it took. So I did.

“M-Myra hated. Hated looking at it. She always thought tattoos were disgusting. But I didn’t care. I needed it. I needed to keep a piece of y—”

_Rrrriiiiipppp!_

They both look down, surprised. Eddie’s shirt has finally given up the ghost and torn underneath Richie’s fingers, right down the middle, Chippendale-style. Oops.

And Richie suddenly finds that he can’t catch his breath. He presses his forehead against Eddie’s, gasping. “Okay, so I think I’m gonna fucking kiss you now. And I’m probably not going to stop there. Probably gonna end up ravishing you like heroine in some shitty romance novel. If you have a problem with any of that, you should probably tell me to fuck off now or— _mmphh_!”

Whatever Richie had been about to say goes flying out the window, because Eddie surges forward, pressing their bodies together, pressing his mouth _hard_ to Richie’s. It’s…oh god, it’s messy and artless and awkward and so fucking perfect, and it has Richie hard so fast he goes a little light-headed.

Things get kinda hazy after that. There’s a lot of pulling and shifting and hot, desperate panting, and then Eddie is in Richie’s lap, straddling him, knees digging into the cushions on either side of his hips so their groins are flush. Richie humps up against Eddie’s own hard-on restlessly, fucking _hurting_ for it, and feels Eddie thrust back down in counterpoint.

He gets the remains of Eddie’s t-shirt down off shoulders, tosses it fuck knows where, and cups his hands around Eddie’s ass, urging him on, already headed for the fucking finish line even though they just got started. Then Eddie pulls back, breaking their kiss.

His cheeks are flushed, his hair disheveled, his pupils blown wide. It’s hotter than anything Richie could have imagined. Eddie stammers, panting, “You know that…you know that I…” He looks down, jaw working.

Richie nuzzles against Eddie’s cheek, lays a kiss there, presses one more to the corner of his mouth. “You what? What is it, sweetheart?”

Eddie shivers. Maybe it’s the endearment, maybe it’s Richie’s hand on his side, thumb stroking the skin over his ribs, maybe it’s the way each of them can’t stop moving against each other, hips working in hitching, desperate little thrusts—first Richie, then Eddie, then Richie again, back and forth—but somewhere in there, Eddie seems to lose the thread.

“What were you going to say, Eds? I know that you what?” Something about the tremble in Eddie’s voice when he’d said it. Richie needs to know.

Eddie flinches. Swallows audibly before saying, “You know that…that I’m not actually _him_ , right?”

“I…what?” Richie feels like he’s been slapped. And not in the fun way.

“I’m saying, you know I’m not _your_ Eddie. The one you lost.” Eddie shrugs, sheepish and sad. 

_I’m not your Eddie, and you’re not my Richie._ The rest of the statement had gone unsaid, but fuck if Richie doesn’t hear it anyway.

“I…I know.” Their movements have stilled and something about that stillness feels scarily fragile, like something could shatter if they move wrong. Richie cradles Eddie’s hips gently—not so tight he can’t move if he wants to, but with enough force to anchor him there, if that’s where he wants to be. An answer to an unasked question.

“I know that you’re not him, and I’m not me,” he winces at how dumb that sounds. Shakes his head. “I mean, I’m not _your_ me,” he amends. “But I also know your favorite color is red, and that you’re a night person who wishes you were a morning person, and that you hate the smell of rubbing alcohol, and I know you read _Matilda_ so many times your copy fell apart and your mom refused to buy you a new one because she said Roald Dahl’s writing was nothing but ‘mind-rotting bunk.’ And yeah, I fucking know that you might not be the ‘right’ you and I might not be the ‘right’ me, but I also know that we’re _us_. Eddie and Richie. Not matter what universe we’re in. No matter what version of ourselves we are. We’re right and we fit and we’re _us_.”

Eddie closes his eyes, takes in a breath so deep that Richie can feel his belly expanding against his own. He doesn’t respond for a long moment. When he opens his eyes again, they’re glassy with tears. He bites at the cuticle of his left thumb, worrying at it with his teeth, then stops, and very deliberately moves his hand away from his mouth. “I used to dream about this happening. All the time,” he admits. “But then I’d wake up, and you’d still be gone. And I’ve been sitting here all this time, trying to convince myself this is real. That I’m not going to wake up again in a world without you. But you didn’t have the turtle with you in my dreams. And you never showed me your scars either.” He leans forward taking Richie’s hand in his, lifts it to his mouth to press a frankly _dirty_ kiss to the center of Richie’s palm. The swipe of his tongue tongue down the ridge of scar there sends a shiver up Richie’s spine.

“So you’re saying I _shouldn’t_ take my tiny turtle and go back where I came from?

“Richie Tozier, you’re such a fucking idiot.” Eddie’s grin is big, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The effect is dazzling, and Richie expels a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Eddie’s still talking, “You crossed worlds to find me. If you’re planning on leaving, you better fucking take me with you this time. Got it?”

“Got it.” Richie knows he’s grinning like a loon, but he can’t help it.

“Good.” Eddie presses a quick kiss against his lips. “Fucking _good_.” 

“One more question though.”

Eddie rolls his eyes but he can’t hide his smile. “Oh, here we go.”

“No, I’m serious! It’s very important!” Richie protests, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

“Uh huh, sure. Let’s hear it.” Eddie’s eyes twinkle, and it’s all Richie can do not to compare them to dark stars or black diamonds, and…oh yeah. He’s got it bad.

“Sit back for a second.” Richie presses a gentle hand against Eddie’s abdomen. It’s flat now, hard muscle underneath, and Richie makes a mental note to ask him if he’s been working out. But that’s not the question he intends to ask right now. “Move back a little more,” Richie continues to push until Eddie’s ass is balanced on the very edge of Richie’s lap, and Eddie has to grab Richie’s shoulders for balance.

“Okay, that’s perfect. Now seriously,” Richie tucks two fingers into the front of Eddie’s waistband, pulling it out away from his body. “What the hell are you hiding in here? A fucking elephant gun? I felt it earlier, that cannot seriously be your dick. C’mon, let me see.” He makes a show of trying to peek inside Eddie’s pants. Eddie laughs, slapping his hands away.

“You’re such an _asshole_ , Tozier!”

“No, I’m serious!” Richie takes his hand out of Eddie’s pants, but only so he can palm his ass and tug him back against his own body. “Eddie Kaspbrak is packing! And he has a tattoo! And he owns a dog! What the fuck is happening right now? I’m so confused! Up is down, down is up, nothing makes—”

“Oh shut the fuck up and do me already, Tozier.” Then Eddie’s mouth is on his again, and Richie’s pulling him in even tighter, cradling him close so he can tip him over onto his back, and press his body against his, so he can fucking _move_ like he’s been dying to do since the first time he held him in his arms again. _God_ , was it really just a couple hours ago?

They come like that, right there on Eddie’s couch, dry humping like teenagers. Well. It’s not strictly _dry_ , if you get Richie’s drift, but it _is_ hot, and desperate, and toe-curlingly good, especially when Eddie clutches at the back of his shirt and cries out, shaking as his cock kicks between them, and the feel of it, the hot, gut-clenching pulses, takes Richie right over the edge with him.

“ _Fffffuck_ ,” Richie tells the ceiling afterwards, after he’s barely managed to flip them over so he doesn’t crush Eddie’s smaller frame beneath him. He’s so strung out on euphoria and endorphins that all he can do is sprawl there limply, head tipped back, arms and legs trembling as he holds Eddie close, their pants tangled around their knees and their spend drying between them while their bodies cool.

Eddie mumbles something, his face tucked into Richie’s neck so all Richie gets is a mishmash of slurred consonants. “What’s that?” he murmurs, lifting a hand to pet lazily at the soft thickness of Eddie’s hair.

“ _Mmmpf_.” Eddie lifts his head slowly. “I said…” His eyes are dazed when he meets Richie’s. Pleasure-drunk. Happy, even. But there’s fear there too. “Do I really get to keep you?”

“Oh. Eds, sweetheart, I hate to tell you this, but,” Richie shakes his head mournfully. “I’m like the world’s worst case of VD. You couldn’t get rid of me now if you wanted to.”

Eddie huffs out a helpless, throaty laugh, his face pressed against the side of Richie’s neck. “Well, my mom always did say I’d catch something if I kept hanging around you. Never thought I’d be so glad to prove her right.”

“Damn right!” Richie laughs, fucking giddy with joy. They’re together. They’re _them, a_ nd they’re together, and they’re going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> I lost count of how many King!Universe/Dark Tower references and/or Easter eggs I snuck into this story, but if you noticed any while you were reading, I hope you enjoyed finding them as much as I enjoyed hiding them. ;)
> 
> I've been on hiatus from Tumblr for a while, but I'm trying to get back into it, so drop me a line over there if you'd like. I'm LaVeraceVia there as well!
> 
> Feedback is <3


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